David woke up around 7:15 today and played on his phone while letting Caitlyn get some sleep until around 8:30 so we can pack up. One benefit of getting up a little early is that david got the chance to put on his motion sickness patch on early, as it takes around 4 hours to start working. We got up and efficiently packed our stuff (helped that the laundry service folds your clothes) and headed to the front desk by around 10:25 to check out.
They had us settle up on laundry and they took a quick look at the minibar before we left. The shuttle was right on time and we put our stuff in and rode a bit over an hour to the airport. As always, we checked in, dropped off our bags, and went through security.
We checked out a few possible spots for lunch and settled on a small place that specializes in noodles/noodle soup with slices of meat. David got the duck noodle dry style, and Caitlyn got the Hong Kong style pork, soup style and we sat at a tiny table. Thankfully they did bring a small bowl of broth with David’s meal, as he regretted not getting the soup version after seeing Caitlyns. The duck noodles were great, with a delicious salty/vinegar flavor in the noodles themselves, though the duck wasn’t anything special. Caitlyn added some dried peppers to hers and was very happy with hers.
We then got a seat near our gate and hung out there for a bit over an hour. It was strangely warm in the airport and we both started to get sweaty and a little uncomfortable. We worked on the blog for the most part, until it was time to board. We scanned our boarding passes and were sent down a staircase. We figured this would take us to a walkway onto the plane, but strangely it took us to another waiting area with tons of chairs. They did start boarding people from here after about 5 or 10 minutes and we were able to board after about 15.
Our seats were super close to the front of the plane, which isn’t usually the case but seems nice for getting off the plane. Thankfully our window and aisle seat trick worked out well this time as we had no one in the middle seat! The flight was actually pretty empty all things considered. David decided that instead of watching a movie like usual, he would take this time to keep writing the blog. We had mentally prepared for a 2 hour long flight but it was only around an hour.
We landed in Malaysia, collected our bags, and headed towards customs. Interestingly, customs here has you put your bag back through an xray scanner. We had seen something online about potentially having to declare some medications, and worried about one of his meds, David asked a customs officer who said it doesn’t need to be declared as we aren’t staying for long and it isn’t a large quantity.
We decided to check out a ride app and it turns out that that it was less than $6 to get from the airport almost 50 minutes to our hotel.
We arrive in no time and check in. We get up to our room on the 3rd floor, and while it is certainly going to work just fine for us, we were spoiled by the last room and nothing will live up to it. The bed seemed comfortable, the bathroom was big enough, and there is a reasonable amount of space. The only issues we noticed are the A/C unit doesn’t seem to get very cold, there is no mini fridge, and the safe doesn’t work. Oh well, we can deal with all of this! We spent a few minutes before deciding to head out.
The Google site on the hotel mentioned something about a rooftop area, so before heading down we went up a floor to check it out. There didn’t seem to be anything at all, so we went downstairs to ask and the attendant who said that it’s where their laundry equipment is and is restricted. We headed out and started walking towards what seems to be a good area for food.
As we walked along, we really began to notice how different it is here compared to other countries. The roads and sidewalks aren’t terrible, but the drainage areas in the streets are largely uncovered, leaving a 2+ foot hole between most sidewalks and the road, often with crumbling concrete blocks or small ramps to climb up sporadically placed.
There were a ton of cafes open and quite a few restaurants. We also passed by a giant mosque that was pretty well lit up even later at night. We definitely plan on coming back here as it is so close to our hotel.
We got to an area with a lot of open restaurants and bars, and we found a place with a happy hour (seems like happy hour here is from ~6-10). The place was called “Gravy Baby” for some reason, and while they had a menu just too extensive to trust anything, they did have a good cocktail list with good prices. We spent some time here before deciding to walk to a nighttime food market.
There were maybe a dozen stalls lining each side of a road, with some cars and quite a few motorcycles still using the road. Along the side were some small plastic tables and chairs, many sitting in little puddles on the ground. We checked out the stalls and decided to get a bowl of hokkien mee (noodle dish, but served soup style here) and an order of char kway teow (stir fried rice noodle dish). David went to go get the noodle soup and caitlyn went to get the rice noodle disg. David asked for a large bowl of hokkien mee and a spring roll. The total came out to 10.50, which is about $2. David tried handing them a 20 ringgit bill and they couldn’t provide change and told him that it is okay. David grabbed a table and eventually his order was delivered and Caitlyn came back holding the other half of our meal.
The hokkien mee was incredible. It was sitting in a rich reddish-brown broth with so much flavor and a nice mild spice. There were multiple eggs, shrimp, and other delicious toppings. The spring roll was super crispy and delicious, but nothing top special. The char kway teow was pretty good but was totally outshined.
We were tired from such a long day at this point so we grabbed some waters from a convenience store, headed back to shower, and went to bed.
David’s thoughts of the day: Every airport is so different with security. Some are very strict and some are more relaxed. Most don’t care about shoes but some do. Most do want the iPad out of the bag, but some don’t care so it’s confusing.
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: I am so excited to try more of the street food here! It’s very different than Singapore, who utilizes the hawker style eateries, and here is more street carts. This seems like maybe not the best method to those from the US, but the food is INCREDIBLE!
Steps walked: 9,189
Miles walked: 4.66
Bluming Travelers 